Another business has fallen victim to the current recession being experienced in the United States, many other business sectors have felt the impact long before the timeshare industry, however earlier this week Consolidated Resorts announced that it will be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Consolidated Resorts was a vacation ownership company which manages 14 different resorts located in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and Orlando. Perhaps the most notable of these resorts was Tahiti Village and Club De Soleil, two of their three Las Vegas resorts. Many people will remember spots on television for Tahiti Village featuring famous actor Alan Thicke. In a prepared statement to the Wall Street Journal representatives of Consolidated stated they were forced to file for bankruptcy because of the current lending environment because it “has made it impossible to continue this company”.

After reading multiple articles online concerning this subject some of the more interesting information came from a page written by consumerist.com. In the article one of the former employees of Tahiti Village exposed some of the tactics used by this organization to keep purchasers from rescinding their timeshare. Here is a description of the business practices that the former employee stated bothered them the most:

• Misleading customers to think they had properly invoked their right to rescind by simply calling in within their 5 day period (when really they had to send a certified letter). The customer would think they were relieved of the horrible investment then 30 days later, they’re stuck with a big fat bill.
• Using celebrities like Alan Thicke, George Wallace, and others in a game show for timeshare purchasers to win free getaways or a million dollars. The game show was called 2nd Honeymoon. The real purpose behind it was to manipulate buyers from invoking their right to rescind. It worked too.

After reading about some of these practices employed by the owners/operators of Tahiti Village one really starts to wonder if this was just the tip of the iceberg. What other practices were employees using in a dishonest manner to complete a sale or keep a customer from canceling a sale? I would be interested to hear from some people who had visited Tahiti Village for one of their promotional sales meetings and see what other tactics were used. If you would be interested in reading for full article mentioned above please click here.

Luckily all the resorts managed by Consolidated will not be shutting down and will continue normal operations. If you are an owner at one of the resorts managed by this company you should not be affected by the bankruptcy filings.

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